Requiem
by scratchmarred
Summary: Sirius Black ponders magic, his own inconsistency, and his lover. Warning: platonic Sirius Bellatrix.


     **Note:** initially a Cookie for the FictionAlley Ship threads, I decided to post and check on a more global response. Before reading, I would like to point to you the following: first and foremost, this is **_Sirius/Bellatrix_**. I don't know how to underline that better. Some may find it incestuous – I personally have a semi-canon supported theory that she is not related to him in the least- so, if you're part of the latter group, I advise you against the following piece. The sexual innuendos aren't numerous, and it's more angsty than physical.

   With it being my first piece of Romance, I'd like to apologize beforehand to whomever might find it, err, mushy or inconsistent. 

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   Magic, Sirius knew, was the sum of all ethereal experiences. Magic floated, encompassed; it was as life, on occasion, and generated. Hardly a tool, more of an unforgiving master.  But above all, magic was change. Constant transformation – just one divine gift, within human grasp… he did not even care to ponder as to the extents of its perversion, but he found it intriguing, in the very least, that the human entity, who prided and craved for balanced, would ever rely on its very opposite to achieve it. Magic was the incessant wrestle, and magic did not fade. Magic could draw life or death, but magic fed on neither. It was further from equilibrium, further than anything else. And still the human mind, ever so serene in its banality, found in it an irresistible appeal.   

There was beauty in magic, though, perhaps, a beauty few could truly see. Truly understand. Mayhap it was this why so many cults had formed, in the days of the Old, or why they would burn witches and cling to their feigned cries. They never died as easily, but the gesture in itself spoke enough of the human mentality.  They wishes to tear down their perfection, could not fathom such a proximity to God. To an unprepared mind, too much beauty, instability was, in all truth, the greatest hell. 

    This was partly his reason for always noting the Muggle Borns newly arrived at Hogwarts. Little details were what best humored him – short looks here, little gasps there…no more than fleeting moments, until this, all this, magic, would grow nothing beyond the ordinary for the tip of their wands to spawn. Still, it was that initial lust that he enjoyed. That febrile glances expressing the sort of hunger that demanded control – and over what, of all things? The uncontrollable. 

  This mere train of thoughts had the gift of amusing him, if nothing else. 

  To seize the uncontrollable…to yearn for something you may never have without being tainted in return… what would Bellatrix think of all of this? She'd join him in a laugh, perhaps. She had always been one for irony. But then again, it was hard to discard the similarity, the – he found the word "paradox" obnoxiously suitable but would never linger upon it, on account of its implications… 

    He had always taken to this game – cat and mouse, something that could never be found, but always sought. She liked to call it their equal quest for ideals, and it entertained her beyond belief that they, the both of them, could ever succumb as much to their instincts as to forget all patterns, all logic, all expectations, and reach precisely to their opposites. Just like Muggles with their magic.

    Had it always been about passion? She would never agree, but, then again, their opinions – and it was his private belief that sentiments, as well- on the matter had always quite differed. She liked to think herself the colder of the two – the one whose composure would never weaken, the one who could control herself enough as to keep back. But didn't Muggles think the same? Wasn't this very lack of will that forced their hand in finally ruining what they could not keep themselves from wanting? 

   Still, she was of the Serpent, and the fluidity of their intimacy had surprised them both, throughout time. _Certain things, even History leaves for interpretation…_

  He had always wondered on the bond between Salazar and Godric. Tales had it there was something more there, than to first meet the eye. He'd dismissed the thought completely, as a child, but now, spared of an innocence he still believed to have been his damnation, he could not help but accept and quite encourage the possibility. After all, devious Slytherin made exquisite companion for the enterprising Gryffindor mind.   

   Besides, it had always been she to come to him. Even in the beginning. One raging winter night – and she so fancied winter- and he had learned that beneath the cold lied a fire only his own could match, awaken. Seduced by an elder woman. How very congenial. They had never talked much before that. Glimpses, small words, everything, however, had compounded for that sweet little tension he'd heard so many girls at Hogwarts call "chemistry". 

    She disapproved completely of him, naturally. Then again, neither did he acquiesce any of her actions, much too Slytherin in the core to his tastes, but they would still meet, at nights – she never failed to come. Hatred was as great a catalyst as love, greater still, perhaps, and they made use of it perfectly. 

   He had never been in the habit of saying no, and she had always wished for just a part of the man she had always said he would become. They'd never argued on that they would not have much of each other. And he'd always known, that night to mark his sixteenth Yule, that the woman near him, merely two years his senior, shed tears not for what she had done, but for what she would never after this be able to do. 

  It went against his upbringing to say or do anything beyond etiquette, so he was tied to the rules of a game he would rather not play, in what liaisons were concerned. Limits that he would never once have heeded, with anyone else. But she was family, so they said, and - though discretion had always been a crucial caliber of the nature of their relationship- they were far more useful in tying bonds with other lineages, rather than enforcing their own.

     A true horror, that, because he doubted they would ever be anything but starved for one another ,and that they would ever tire of each other's chaotic mannerisms. He loathed her mentality, her priorities. She despised his entourage and his inflexibility. They both hated each other's pride.  

  And still they craved for each other eternally. 

  It was with these reflections that he allowed himself a little conclusion. One dire, perhaps, but still. And in turning to the woman near him, in stroking her each tear, in meeting her embrace, he could think one thing, only say one thing:

    _"This is magic…"_ he whispered, and she nodded. Pity however, that just like Muggles, they would invariably end up destroying what they wish for but cannot have…

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End file.
